Internet users cannot be sued for reposting defamatory statements

A California Supreme Court ruling says that only the author of the defamatory …

The California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that individual Internet users are generally protected from libel actions when they repost material written by others, even if notified that such material may be libelous. While the ruling gives bloggers and Web journalists more freedom to act, it also led the court to worry about the "disturbing implications" of granting such broad immunity.

The ruling is based on a reading of section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, which states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This is important because only those who author and publish defamatory statements can be held liable for them; distributors cannot. If a newsstand sells a periodical which defames Bob Jenkins of 121 Mistledown Terrace, West Rumpleshneider, Vermont, Bob cannot sue the newsstand unless he can show that the distributor was notified of the defamation and continued to sell the magazine. He can also go after the magazine's publisher, who is responsible for the material in the magazine.

The question before the court was whether this off-line principle applied in the online world. Can an online user be sued for libel if she posted the statements in question after being notified that they were libelous? The Communications Decency Act clearly says that users who repost such information cannot be sued as the "publisher" of that information, but can they be sued as the distributor?

The case in question (Barrett v. Rosenthal) arose when Dr. Stephen Barrett, who runs the website Quackwatch, sued Ilena Rosenthal over allegedly defamatory statements about Barrett that Rosenthal posted to Internet news groups. The statements were written by someone else, but Barrett's lawyers argued that Rosenthal was liable as a distributor because she had previously been warned by Dr. Barrett about the contents of the messages.

The Supreme Court overturned an Appeals Court ruling in favor of Barrett and ruled for Rosenthal. The justices pointed to precedent which suggested that "the publisher/distributor distinction makes no difference for purposes of section 230 immunity" and said that the Appeals Court was "swimming against the jurisprudential tide." The court concluded that the Communications Decency Act intended to immunize all intermediaries on the Internet, which means that Barrett's only recourse would be against the person who authored the statements—not against Rosenthal.

It's an idea that made the justices somewhat uneasy. "The prospect of blanket immunity for those who intentionally redistribute defamatory statements on the Internet has disturbing implications," said the court, but the justices argued that a plain reading of section 230 made their decision necessary. "Any further expansion of liability must await Congressional action," the decision concluded.